Fast Forward: A TimeTurner with a Twist
by Oniko
Summary: A teenage Severus Snape acquires a Time-Turner that sends him forwards, not back, in time and he finds himself in 1996. SS/HG.
1. Chapter 1

Fast Forward: A Time-turner with a Twist

By Oniko

Chapter One

_**Disclaimer:**_ Harry Potter and Co. are, of course, owned by J.K. Rowling.

**_AN: _**Edited and re-posted.

... ... ...

Severus Snape pulled the hood of his traveling cloak over his head as he stepped into the Hog's Head with the crate of illegally brewed potions tucked under his arm. A quick glance across the poorly lit and nearly empty pub caused a scowl to twist his thin lips; his contact wasn't here yet. He set the crate down under the table and signaled the barkeeper for a drink. He wasn't about to actually drink the sludge that filled the thick-bottomed tainted glass, but he had to at least make the attempt to blend in with the rest of the clientele.

It was a long half-hour before Mundungus Fletcher finally slunk into the seat across from him. This time, the man had a scraggly, patchy, fake beard covering his face and two, differently colored, mustaches glued upside down to his brow line.

"Where have you been?" Severus hissed.

"Sorry, mate." Fletcher shrugged and scratched his chest. "Didn't think that you wanted the Aurors riding my arse finding your little goodies. Got the stuff?"

"It's all there," Severus kicked the crate lightly causing the tightly packed vials to chime lightly. "You got my money?"

"Don't break them!" Fletcher scolded as he ducked under the table to pull the crate towards him. Severus could hear him crack the lid and check the potions. "Same quality? Didn't cut the love potions with anything did you?"

"Why don't you crack one and see?" Severus suggested less then amused at the hypocrisy of the man. They both knew full well that Fletcher cut them with the easier to make, not to mention cheaper, calming draughts or lust potions, depending on whether the addict was looking for a soporific or a manic high. These were real, bordering on dark, love potions; not those silly little things that any idiot could pick up at a joke shop to cause someone to act a fool. These gave the drinker a feeling of euphoria so intense that many addicts drank them straight. Of course most addicts were too self-centered to bother with actually trying to love someone, they just wanted the rush.

"I may be a fool, but even I know better then to sample my own goods." Fletcher grinned at him. "It'd be like stealing from myself."

Severus snorted. "But everyone else is up for grabs, right? Where's my money?"

"Great Merlin, boy, you've the patience of a satyr in a whorehouse. Here, it's all there… you don't have to count it!" Fletcher protested as Severus whipped out his wand to do just that. A quick spell and a golden number floated up from the depths of the bag, 1,200 Galleons.

Severus grunted and stood, tucking the bag in a hidden pocket in his robes, charmed so that he was the only one who could withdraw the contents, to anyone else ruffling through his clothes it would appear to be an empty pocket. "I'll contact you when the next batch is ready."

"Pleasure, doing business with you," Fletcher, tipped his hat with a painful ripping sound half of his right "eyebrow" came off, his real eyebrow with it. He stood and as he bent down to pick up the crate of love potions a small silver trinket fell out of his pocket to land a Severus' feet. In a flash Severus stooped to pick it up. "Hey, give that back."

"What is it?" Severus asked turning the small silver hourglass filled with shining white sand in his fingers. There was a small loop on one end where it could be strung on a chain and worn as a pendent.

"Careful! That's a Time-Turner!" Fletcher snapped almost causing Severus to drop it.

"A Time-Turner?"

"Yup, a flip of that hourglass thingy will send you back an hour." Fletcher told him with a conspiratorial grin. "Lifted it from some nutter."

"Ah." Severus' mind was instantly filled with visions of finally, finally being able to get a leg up on Fucktard Four. "How much?"

"Tell you the truth, that's a very rare co-mah-do-tee you're holding there," Fletcher said, rubbing his hands and easing into the bargaining. "I couldn't let it go for less then 6,000 galleons."

Severus almost flinched at the price. As it was, most of this money would be going back into his illicit potions business in order to purchase what ingredients and supplies that he could obtain legally to keep the filching from Slughorn's potion's stores to a minimum. He had to counter with a potion that would be reasonably rare or difficult to brew but not be excessively costly to produce. Since this was the first batch of the year, his cash reserve was practically non-existent after buying his books and school supplies, even second hand. "Half a case of polyjuice."

"A full crate,"

"Half a crate or you can forget doing business with me again…ever." Severus could always dig up another black market potions dealer out from under some other rock, but a skilled potions maker was damn hard to find.

"Make it a witch's dozen and you've got a deal."

"Very good," Severus said pocketing the small hourglass with the galleons.

"Hold on now," Fletcher said. "How'm I to know you won't just walk off with the 'Turner and not give me my poly."

"I'll give a third off the next batch of love potions, if I can take the Time-Turner now." There was no way Severus was going to leave without this treasure in his pocket.

"It ain't leavin' my sight without a down payment in my hand."

Severus nodded withdrew the bag of Galleons; he spelled out the 400 galleons and turned on his heel before Fletcher had the chance to pick his jaw up off the floor at Severus' easy capitulation, or his own bad luck if he thought he could wrangle any more money out of Severus. His first stop was to the apothecary. It was also his only stop. He had been hoping to spend his profit on new school robes, he was down to just the clothes on his back after a slicing hex shredded his last set beyond all repair. Not anymore. He was going to have to spend everything he had on the supplies for the next batch of the love philters and the polyjuice, and not even all of them. The most expensive items would have to be stolen; there was no help for it.

"Madam." He greeted the wizened shop keep behind the counter.

"Snape," she said. Her voice was harsh and smoke-scarred. "Your usual?"

"No, I'll need maiden's hair, bleeding hart, lacewing flies, powdered bicorn horn…" Severus trailed off trying to mentally calculate what he could afford.

She handed him a scrap of parchment and a broken stick of charcoal. He scratched out the full list of ingredients for both potions and the amounts he would need, ignoring the black stains left on his fingers by the coal-stick, then crossing out the ingredients he knew he couldn't afford.

She took one look at the list and ground out, "Eight hundred and sixty Galleons, seven Sickles, and fourteen Knuts." He winced and scratched off a couple of other items. "Seven hundred fourteen and two, twenty-three."

He nodded and dropped his remaining galleons on the table while she went in the back to gather his order. It took a while and Severus kept glancing out the dusty windows at the street outside, even though he knew that right after the full moon the Gryffindors would be staying close to home while Lupin recovered, the Gryffindors weren't the only ones he didn't get along with.

The old woman came back carrying two crates, and while she was counting out his change he checked their contents. The bottom crate was filled with neatly packed empty vials; while the top crate contained all the ingredients in jars, paper twists and thick, wobbly blown glass bottles, as well as two lined cases containing additional empty vials. He closed the crates with a practiced knock on each corner and left the apothecary with the few Sickles and Knuts in his pocket jingling only occasionally and his supplies in his arms.

He made it to his private lab, a stores closet in the old Alchemy classroom on the second floor. The intricate glass distilleries and other arcane equipment were now dusty and empty. No one ever came here anymore since it was dropped from the curriculum about a century or so ago, but he was still careful to leave no sign of his presence in the main room and check his wards on the closet.

Inside it was meticulously clean, a drastic change from the dusty abandoned room beyond. Shelves still ran the length of the room and a student table from the classroom had been pushed into the back of the space where it stretched from wall to wall. Severus quickly put away his purchases, only momentarily torn between organizing them all together and keeping them separate according to their end product. Normally he would prefer the first method, but he would only be working on these two potions for this brewing cycle with both his funds and personal stores were running dry. Settling on the second option, he emptied the first crate and nudged the empty vials under the table next to his stacked cauldrons where they weren't likely to be a tripping hazard or easily broken. Then he eagerly took out the tiny hourglass. He'd been eager to check out the Time-Turner since Fletcher told him about it.

"Okay," he whispered eagerly to himself, "One spin takes you back in time one hour." He grasped the knob on the side of the hourglass, pinched between thumb and forefinger, and _twisted,_ and… nothing happened. The room remained exactly the same as before with his potions ingredients lined along the shelves and a corner of the crate peeking out from under the worktable. "Damn."

He stared at the tiny device, trying not to give in to the sudden rage and helplessness that threatened to overwhelm him. Tears stung his eyes. All he needed was one small break… before he broke. Severus blinked his eyes rapidly to clear them, trying to ignore his father's sneering voice echoing in his head. _Pathetic, weakling, good for nothing… _He closed his fist around the hourglass, wishing that he had the strength to crush the worthless thing, the pendant loop bit into his palm.

Perhaps it wasn't that it _could_ be worn as a pendant but that it _had_ to be worn as a pendant. _But Fletcher acted like it might,_ he thought before arguing back, _maybe he didn't know._ Could he afford to just throw it away? He pulled out the cracked cauldron he used for garbage and dug through the assorted oddments; scraps of parchment and broken quills, a piece of twine… that was too short. Could he transfigure a chain? He paused in thought. He had the skills, even though Transfiguration wasn't one of his best classes. It was a simple object to object transformation, but the residue magic might affect the Time-Turner's own inherent magic. If it did, he figured that it would do one of two things. Either the stronger Time-Turner's magic would overwhelm the transfiguration causing the magic field established by the chain to snap, at which point he couldn't even begin to guess at the result but could assume that it would not be pretty. Or, transfiguration residue would interrupt the delicate magic of the Time-Turner and corrupt its proper usage in any number of unpleasant ways.

Severus stared down at the floor in thought, stared down at his shoes, his perfectly Muggle, unmagicked shoes. He ripped out the laces in one of his shoes, swearing at the stubborn knot that hadn't been untied in months and wouldn't easily come undone. Eventually he had the kinked length free from the shoe and threaded through the loop on the Time-Turner. He tied a solid knot in the dusty ends, most of it was black but it eventually faded to a dingy gray. He sneered at it. He hated the color gray, his life was gray. Fortunately this gray was easily washed away with soap and water if not magic. No not magic, magic cleaning might have the same problem as a magic chain in the first place. And as non-magic chains and cords were rare and expensive in the wizarding world his shoe lace was it. Fortunately his shoe _could_ make due with a transfigured shoe lace.

With shaking hands and bated breath, Severus draped the black cord over his head and once again twisted the hourglass. This time the world twisted with him. Now the shelves were empty, as empty as they were an hour before he returned with his purchases.

"Yes!" he cried triumphantly, rising one fist in victory. His breath caught as the world twisted around him again. He'd been careless and his fingers brushed across the knob turning the Time-Turner back to the beginning… and his potions things were once again neatly organized on the shelves in front of him. He stood in his room in surprise, so not only could he go back but it could return him to when he started. That could be useful. He grinned and tucked the Time-Turner under his shirt. This was going to be a great year.

... ... ...

This was going to be a shitty year.

Severus glowered at the Gryffindor table from the relative safety of the Slytherin table with his back against the wall. Potter and Black were planning something. He could tell. No, not by their heads bowed conspiratorially together; they were always like that. It was the frown on Lily's face and the way her eyes would occasionally dart over to him. He wondered if she would tell him. She sometimes would. Even after everything she would somehow find a way to sneak a warning to him. A reminder of what they used to mean to each other. What she still meant to him, if he were to be honest. Far be it for a Slytherin to be honest with anyone, least of all himself. First class today was NEWTS-level Potions. They usually partnered. Maybe she would tell him then, if it didn't happen before class.

He made it safely to the Potions classroom and pulled out his book and quill for the lecture. Lily slid into her seat barely before the bell. _Probably in the hall snogging Potter,_ he thought with a grimace. Slughorn entered a few minutes later and smiled benevolently at his small class before launching into the day's lecture. Severus idly scratched his thoughts into the margins and between the lines of his text book, the sharp edges of his words biting into the paper. It was a habit begun in earlier years because his parents couldn't afford the reams of parchment everyone else came to school with so he saved the paper for assignments and reports, anything to avoid the humiliation of begging his housemates for scraps. Sometimes, often, it wouldn't last and he would have to ask anyways. They'd give it, to do otherwise would make the house look bad, but it would inevitably come at a price. Once he had made the mistake of asking Slughorn for 15 inches so he could do an assignment in his second year Potions class. Slughorn sent an owl to his parents and he hadn't been home five minutes before learning not to do that again, ever.

"Lily," he said softly, turning imperceptibly to face her. It was barely ten minutes into the class and Severus couldn't stand the tension anymore.

"What?" she snapped back in a harsh whisper.

_As if she didn't know. "_What are Black and Potter up to?"

"I don't know."

"Bullshit," he hissed. "I saw your face while you where eavesdropping on those two prats."

She was silent for so long he was half-tempted to kick her chair. "What do you have against James anyways? He saved your life fifth year, can't you just bury the hatchet?"

"No I can't, and no, he didn't," Severus growled. He could feel the familiar hot flush of anger rising and his grip tightened on the quill almost to snapping. "He kept his friend from becoming a murderer. I just happened to be the lucky victim."

"Mr. Snape, do you have something to share with the class?" Professor Slughorn broke off his droning lecture to glance over at Severus.

_That you're a bloody idiot who couldn't brew his way out of a paper bag,_ Severus thought. He used to think that Slughorn was a decent potions teacher, but once he started his illicit potions business in the Alchemy closet his own skills improved in leaps and bounds and he finally saw the man for the barely competent hack that he was. "No, sir."

"Then I suggest, Mr. Snape, that you not waste your time nor mine," Slughorn chided him gently, but it didn't ease Severus' anger in any way. "5 points from Slytherin for talking in class."

Slughorn returned his lecture and Severus returned to eviscerating his text book. After a particularly vicious crossing out of an utterly useless paragraph, Severus felt a light tap on his leg, Lily's usual method for passing notes, and retrieved the tightly folded parchment. In the process his fingers lightly brushed against hers, her long, perfect, delicate fingers. _God, I'm pathetic,_ he thought.

The folded note was covered in black and red ink; it was probably torn from an old assignment. He carefully unfolded the note while watching Slughorn like a hawk. He brought it up to his book when Slughorn, in his pacing lecture, turned his back on Severus.

_Severus,_ the note read. _I'm sorry. I really don't know what the boys are planning. They were just gloating over how clever they were and how they were going to make 'ickle Snivellus cry.' God I hate that name. I wish I could tell you more. Just watch your back, and be safe. ~L._

He snorted softly. _"Be safe."_ _Yeah, right, not with those four out to get me and the Headmaster in their corner._

It was the next day just before Double Charms when everything came to a head. Severus had just walked into the classroom when he found Potter and Black already at their desks, wands crossed, chanting under their breath. Before he could react, to draw his wand or escape, they finished their chant and pulled their wands apart. There was a loud snap like a New Year's cracker, and a werewolf appeared before them with madness in its eyes and saliva dripping from its teeth.

Severus threw himself out of its way, falling over desks and chairs. He heard the sharp clatter of wood on stone but was far more concerned with the werewolf's rumbling growl, and the claws raking lines of fire across his chest, and the smell of the rancid breath across his cheek, and the teeth sinking into his throat.

"_Finite incantatum_," Flitwick's voice cut sharply across the room and the werewolf was gone, So was the pain and the wounds, but not his sobbing, gasping cries. Potter and Black were laughing uproariously. Severus took a few ragged breaths and assessed the damage. He had a cracked elbow and bruised hip from falling over the desks, and pain was blooming at the base of his skull though he didn't remember hitting his head at all. He could hear Flitwick scolding the two Gryffindors.

"We didn't know he was there Professor," Potter said. "We were just making sure we had our compound illusion down for class today."

"Did you see the way he went arse over teakettle," Black snickered. "Good thing he finally bought some trousers, eh?"

Severus flushed. The last time he went "arse over teakettle," as Black so eloquently put it, had given him the impetus to make his own money, since his parents weren't going to buy him anything beyond the minimal robes required. Hogwarts had a policy of approved uniform or nothing under the standard black robes during the weekdays and it was the only thing he could do, or risk further abject humiliation. At first it hadn't been so bad; plenty of Pure-bloods went without even those with money. So it actually helped him fit in with Slytherin house, a little, until Potter used that damn spell.

"Five points from Gryffindor for inattention. Another five for harming another student, perhaps you should go to the Hospital Wing, Mr. Snape," Flitwick said. Severus nodded and left, on the way out the door he caught Flitwick saying in a low voice. "Fifteen points _to_ Gryffindor, though, for a very impressive illusion."

_Of course_, Severus snarled to himself as he limped away from the Charms class.

"Oh, my God! Sev, what happened?" Lily. _Perfect,_ he thought with a bad taste souring his mouth.

"What do you think," he snapped at her.

"Here let me help you." She shifted her bag and lifted his arm across her shoulders.

"Don't… don't touch me!" He pushed her away harshly sending her stumbling a few steps back, other students swirled and eddied around them. He looked away, but didn't move. He didn't want her to see him limping, again.

"Sev, I…" The bell rang and the halls emptied.

"Go on, you'll be late," he said. Out the corner of his eye he saw her red hair bob in a nod and she took a step past him. "Hey, Lily."

"Yeah?" she paused.

"They… could you…" he stumbled over his words. "Could you see that they don't get to keep those fifteen points?"

"Fifteen?" she shrieked. He could hear the steel in her voice and he smiled. "And then some… fifteen points my Aunt Sadie."

After that he almost regretted going to the Hospital Wing. He would have loved to see what Lily was planning to do, she was brilliant when on a tear, but he has some planning of his own to do. This would be the perfect first run for his new toy. Using the Time-Turner he could go back in time to disrupt Black and Potter before they finished casting the illusion, and maybe throw in a little bit of revenge for good measure. His lips turned up in a grin, oh yes, this was perfect. He could just go back to lunch hour right before Double Charms and hide in the classroom, then hex those two fucktards when they weren't looking. Although, Flitwick had come in pretty quick when Black and Potter released their illusion, so he probably wouldn't get away with it. Not mention that Severus wouldn't get fifteen points for giving them the hexing they deserved. No the trick was to not get caught. He knew exactly where Black and Potter would be sitting to cast the spell so he could anchor a couple of latent hexes at that location to be triggered by the spell casting. The trouble with that plan is that it would take more then just the hour lunch to lay in the spells _and _make sure that it would be triggered by only Black and Potter.

Severus fished out Flitwick's office hours to see when the classroom would be free. He had… here three turns would get him in during the last quarter of first period; one more hour would bring him to the beginning of first period. Best of all if someone found him there he could just say that he was looking to ask Flitwick a question about the day's assignment. He put the parchment away, shouldered his bag, and drew out the silver Time-Turner from under his shirt. It was warm from his body heat, and felt almost alive in his hands. He carefully counted out four turns…the world twisted… and everything went black.

He sat perfectly still in the darkness. He could feel the same soft blanket and stiffly starched sheets under his questing fingers, so he was probably still in the Hospital Wing. Two trips and he remained in the exact same place both times. The Time-Turner apparently couldn't move you an inch spatially. He almost jumped out of his skin at the sound of a loud snort beside him that finally subsided into soft snoring. The Hospital Wing had been completely empty a few minutes ago…four hours before his present, but it _should not_ be this dark at nine in the morning. Gradually his eyes adjusted to the faint light from the windows and Severus eased himself off the bed. He had been lucky the sleeper had been assigned the bed next to him rather then this one. He'd have been splinched otherwise, or if the bed had been moved, or any other myriad of small changes. _Note to self: keep in unused or out of the way places when using the Time-Turner._

Creeping out of the Hospital Wing, Severus was careful not to wake anyone but panic was starting to cloud his thinking. _Why was it so dark? What time was it really? Time, time, clock! _The entrance hall had a clock above the house point hourglasses; it was the master for marking the start and end of classes. His feet were off and running before his brain even sent the message. He clattered down several flights of stairs… why was the Hospital Wing on the third floor? Sooner then he expected he was skidding to a halt on the first landing, tripping over the last stair as it moved out from under him and sent him sprawling across the flagstone floor. Frantically clutching his bag to his chest he struggled to his knees, ignoring the ache in the one.

The large clock was back lit with a soft golden light that moved and shifted like liquid, a subtle effect that he had never noticed during the day. The large wrought iron hand with a stylized gold "H" was on "Middle of the Night" and making its slow measured way to "God-awful Early in the Morning." The Time-Turner was supposed to send him back first period, not the middle of the bleeding night! Then he had a horrible thought, what if it wasn't this morning but the day before. Or further…when was the Hospital Wing on the third floor, anyways? He needed a calendar. He needed to know what the date was… periodicals had dates, the library. He staggered to his feet and started up the new staircase that just attached to his landing, hoping that the library was still on the fourth floor. He didn't know what he would do if it was.

He tore up the stairs as fast as he could reasonably go; it was amazing what adrenaline did for pain management. A thought struck him like lighting stopping him dead in his tracks. Professors! Whenever he was Hogwarts was in session… there was a student in the Hospital Wing, so of course Hogwarts was in session, and the professors would be making nightly rounds. Running around willy-nilly wouldn't do a damn thing but get him caught. _Damn it, Snape! You're a Slytherin…_think_ like one,_ he scolded himself. He forced himself to stay still and catch his breath. When the sound of his own gasping no longer masked the steady click of the Hall clock's hand he cast a quick silencing spell on his shoes and started back up the stairs, listening intently for the sound of footsteps.

The library _was_ still on the fourth floor. Severus restrained the urge to run to the periodicals, he'd made enough of a fool of himself for one… day? With shaking hands, he pulled the slatted rod holding the Library's copy of the most recent Daily Prophet. A soft _lumos_ and he scanned the front page of the newspaper. Tuesday, September 10, 1996.


	2. Chapter 2

Flash Forward

Chapter Two

Tuesday, September 10, 1996. It was 1996. Severus stared at the paper in shock. The Time-Turner sent him _forward_ almost twenty years. The Daily Prophet fell from nerveless fingers to land on the stone floor with a loud clatter of wood that made him almost jump out of his skin. He picked up the paper and began meticulously straightening the pages with his mind only half on the task. He was only supposed to go _back_ one hour per turn. How did that happen anyways? What did he know about Time-Turners? Only what Mundungus Fletcher told him in the Hog's Head, and Fletcher was a thief, an illegal potions dealer, and who knows what else, so what did _he _know about Time-Turners?

Severus replaced the newspaper and ran his hand through his hair. Hogwarts had the most comprehensive library in the Northern Hemisphere housing at least one copy of every book ever published in Wizarding Britain and a fair chance at housing foreign publications as well. Chances were that someone, somewhere, wrote something on Time-Turners that would be here… and given another twenty years of research and book collecting, he had a better chance of finding something, too. Mind made up, he stalked to the card catalogue. T… tea, thread, time, time-keeper, time-turner_._ Severus eagerly pulled the card out ripping it from it's moorings in the tiny, cramped drawer. It read '_The Sands of Time: Relativity, Time Travel and Quantum Magic _by Tom Morrow, 130.45 RS.' _Of course,_ he thought,_ the Restricted Section_.

Not a stranger to the Restricted Section of the Hogwarts Library he quickly wove his way through the stacks. He was paying more attention to the number logs on the spines of the books then where he was going so it was of no surprise that his foot caught on a table leg and sent him tumbling to the ground. What was surprising was that he landed on something warm, soft, and… invisible? _What the hell?_

His fingers felt soft cloth and warm skin, and he knew that he heard a startled feminine yelp when he landed. Severus grabbed his wand and dispelled the disillusion to reveal a girl pinned underneath him. And now that he could see her he realized how awkward the position he had landed in was; sprawled across her chest with his hip pressing between her legs. At this point his lizard brain was kicking into high gear with a litany of _'girl, soft breasts, girl, smooth skin, girl, long legs, girl, moist lips, oh God, girl, want girl, want, want, want…'_ He scrambled off of her as quickly as he could, which was probably not as quickly as he should have. "Sorry, sorry, are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," she stood and brushed herself off and he took the opportunity to get a more… objective look at her. The first thing that stood out, and up, was her hair. It was a rich brown and while some of it had taken to the thick rolling curls girls always seemed to prefer, a significant portion was pure kinked frizz making her hair look voluminous and wild. She was dressed in the Hogwarts School Board Approved Girl's Uniform (in Gryffindor colors), sans the black robes and pointy hat which was definitely Unapproved. With an uncomfortable jolt he realized that she was giving him the same appraising look that he was giving her. "I'm sorry. I don't mean to be rude, but who are you?"

"Aurelius Prince." He smiled, smugly pleased at how easily the false name rolled off his tongue, the name that would have been his but for one Tobias Snape. "And you are?"

Her eyebrows shot up in surprise and she stammered a bit. "Her… Hermione Granger."

"A pleasure to meet you, Miss Granger." He stepped forward and bowed to kiss her hand with as much formality and grace as Lucius Malfoy, a prefect from Severus' first year, had attempted to pound into his ragtag self of proper etiquette. After tripping over the poor girl and… and… well, he had to recover himself somewhere.

"Oh, well… um… the pleasure's all mine." She flushed prettily. After a few moments of tense silence while he tried to think of something else to say, she turned towards the table. "If you will excuse me, Mr. Prince."

She tapped the table with her wand as she sat down and he blinked in surprise as the previously empty table was now covered in books, foolscap, and crystal candlesticks with blue flames. He'd never seen such a devise before and leaned over her to give it a closer look. A small two-ounce glass sample jar was fixed upside down to a cut glass candlestick and a small mirror the size of his last thumb joint was inside the jar. It focused a wide circle of light onto the books and notes on the table. He was surprised to see that there was a small air bubble at the top of the jar, or rather the bottom. "Why is the jar filled with water?"

"Huh? Oh! The pressure from the water keeps the flickering to a minimum," she said. He could see exactly what she meant now that she explained it, the little blue flames moved sluggishly in the center of the jar.

He was about to ask another question when he heard her startled gasp. "Prince! Your Time-Turner," she scolded, "you know no one's supposed to know you have one."

No, actually he didn't. "Must've slipped out," he said tucking it under his collar. _Wait a minute_. "You know about Time-Turners?"

"A little, I used one my third year when I overloaded on classes," she told him.

"I think…"Reflexively he looked over his shoulder as he pulled out a chair to sit next to her. "I think there's something wrong with mine. I turned it back four hours a little into fourth period and ended up here."

"Oh, my, are you sure that you didn't miscount the hours?" He snarled a resounding "No," but she continued to talk right over him. "But even so, that would be almost double the turns..." She snagged one of the bluebell candles, this one was shorter then the other two and instead of the beam of light being angled downward it was directed straight out like the torch his father kept in the drawer next to the icebox for when the power went out. The air bubble at the top of the jar made some strange patterns and reflections on the ceiling and unlike a Muggle torch there was a general soft blue light haloing the candle. Granger absently wandered over to the shelves lost in thought, using the blue light to read the titles. "Here we go." She pulled out a thick book bound in soft golden brown leather and handed it to him; ironically it was the exact book he was looking for when he tripped over her. "When I read it my third year I only barely understood the underlying theories, the arithmancy was so advanced… hmm, maybe I should give it another go sometime…Oh! You'll also need…"

She disillusioned her stuff on the table and took off with a purposeful stride. After a moment's hesitation he dropped the book on the table and followed. She navigated the stacks with the sure steps of someone who spent a lot of time wandering amongst the shelves of the Hogwarts Library, the blue beam of light bobbing ahead of them. She led him to a statue of the Roman goddess Justice. He honestly couldn't remember seeing it before, but then, after his first year all the various suits of armor and statuary just faded into the background. She gave the password "_stare decisis_" in a firm, clear voice, and the statue slid aside to reveal a spiral staircase up to the, presumably though in Hogwarts it generally wasn't a good idea to make any assumptions, fifth floor. The staircase let them out in front of a large desk clear of everything but a blotter and a name plate. Curious, Severus picked up the name plate and squinted at the letters in the non-directional light cast by Hermione's bluebell candle, "Clarence Dyke" He winced in sympathy and put the name plate back down. Childhood must have been hell for Mr. Dyke. Meanwhile Hermione walked directly over to a pedestal containing a massive book that would have put the complete unabridged Oxford to shame. As wandered over to her side he glanced around this hidden library, unlike downstairs with a myriad of books in different shapes and sizes, the shelves up here held books bound uniformly with military precision and lined up in stately rows.

"What is this place?" he asked her as he finally made his way to her side.

"Hogwarts acts as the Ministry's secondary depository and long term records storage," she told him as she pulled out a scrap of paper from a shelf under the massive book that he could see now was an index of some sort, probably the master index for the room. "It's a precaution in case anything happens at the Ministry, Hogwarts is isolated enough with powerful wards in its own right to keep important, and un-important," she interjected with a wry humor, "records safe."

She handed him a scrap of paper that read "RD 28 Sec. 15.082(b)1f+" he followed as she led him deeper into the stacks. "How did you know about this place?"

"I was doing some legal research for a friend in my third year, and he gave me the password," she told him.

"Busy third year," he commented.

"You're not kidding. I'm actually surprised they let anyone else have another Time-Turner after me." She flashed him a grin over her shoulder. "You know, I still can't believe that they haven't changed this place's password in three, going on, what? Four years now." She paused thoughtfully. "But I suppose they want to keep it open for the general public without having to worry about the kiddies learning about their own damn rights."

_Wow, that didn't sound bitter at all_. "Had some trouble with the Ministry, have you?"

"Don't ask," she growled at him. He didn't. Eventually they came to a section where the books were bound in a bright white leather. "Here we are: Research and Development," she announced cheerfully. "Look for the numbers I gave you, it'll be all the Ministry's research and reports on Time-Turners." After what seemed like endless searching, he found the right books. Granger flipped though the section index for a few moments, with an expression of open curiosity, before shelving it and dusting off her skirt. "Well, I've got my own research to do. Let me know what you find," She said, leaving him in darkness before he renewed the _lumos_ spell. He frowned at the dim light and wondered if he could get his hands on one of those bluebell candles.

He scanned through the table of contents for subsection 15.082 and tried to figure out what exactly he was looking for. Fletcher said he got the Time-Turner from "some nutter" but what if it wasn't. What if it was someone from the past going stark raving at finding himself in the future? Severus remembered quite clearly the panic and confusion when he found himself in not knowing _when_ he was, an outside observer would probably call him a nutter. He couldn't see the Ministry releasing an untested Time-Turner to some random wizard, so it was probably a Ministry researcher that Fletcher lifted it from. And since the researcher wouldn't have been able to go back, he should be looking for failed and missing experiments, possibly deliberate forays into future travel.

Severus headed back downstairs with several white books on failed experiments _and_ future travel, as well as a black volume of the legal statutes regarding time travel. It was obvious to him the way Granger freaked at seeing the Time-Turner that it had to be heavily controlled by the Ministry, and if he was going to be breaking any laws he wanted to at least know what the risks were especially since the MoM was well known for being incredibly unforgiving of ignorance of the law.

He settled down across from Granger with his little collection and pondered where to start. Stealing a stray piece of foolscap from one of Granger's scattered piles, he jotted down everything he knew for certain and even the things he only suspected about the Time-Turner. It was a pathetically short list. He dragged over the _Sands _book and started reading on the theory of time travel.

He expected the book to be drier than hag's tears, but the author had a surprisingly easy writing style. Morrow explained that time was a single thread that flowed from the past to the future. The present (also called the point of origin or 0-point) was entirely subjective to the individual and his or her starting place in the time stream. The past, or upstream, was immutable, and due to the nature of free will the future, or downstream, was unknowable. _So what the hell is this,_ he thought uncharitably.

Both of them froze as a small bell rang out a merry tune. Looking around, he saw a small bundle of bells, previously overlooked because it was half tucked under the cover of an open book. Granger listened to the tune for a few moments before relaxing. "Don't worry, it's just Madam Pince, she never actually checks this far in the stacks."

"What is that, a sneakoscope?" he asked.

"Sort of," she said. "It's actually more of trip wire, it'll go off whenever anyone crosses the set perimeter, regardless of whether they are being sneaky or not."

"Why so many bells?"

"Each bell is a different alarm set to different parameters," she pointed to the ringing bell. "See, this one is Madam Pince. This one is for Filch or Mrs. Norris. This one is for ghosts. This one is for Peeves. This one is a general alarm for everything else. You get the idea." Looking closely, he noticed that the general alarm was also giving a small tone with long spaces between each note, so was another unnamed bell. He imagined that it was to avoid interfering with the more complex designations on other bells.

_Damn,_ he thought._ Twenty years is leaps and bounds more advanced in magical devices. I want._

She stretched and yawned. "I'm calling it a night. I have Potions tomorrow, not a class to be getting a kip in," she said while gathering her books and paper. Instead of putting everything away properly he was surprised to see her tuck her books and papers in the space behind the shelved books, and cast a disillusion on it for additional redundancy. "Good luck with your research." She waved and left him in the dark again.

After casting _lumos_ for the third time that night, he stared at his page of notes. With a normal Time-Turner that only took the user back a handful of hours, a wizard could easily live through the dual timelines and eventually return to the 0-point only a few hours older then when he left. Severus scanned back up the page to his notes on the initial test run. At the time, he had assumed that he went back an hour because the supplies he bought had disappeared, but what if, instead, he went _forward_ to a time when his supplies had been cleared out. He had no other reference to mark exactly when the single turn left him. He jotted that down, and remembered the odd incident where he accidentally twisted the Time-Turner back the opposite way. He had forgotten about it when he first wrote out his notes and added it in under the known facts and assumptions. Perhaps he could get back to 1977 by turning the hourglass four spins counter to his initial turns. He wrote that down and marked it as hypothesis one. He wondered what would happen if he spun it to go upstream from his 0-point. He noted that down under test one. He also marked lines for T1 through T4. The last of which he filled out with the 1996 date and the time he appeared.

Bored with theory he grabbed the black law book and started scanning though the tissue thin pages. The introductory section laid out the same information with mind numbing legalese. Following that was the proper procedure for procuring a Time-Turner, who could and could not use one, and so on. Then came the important part: the legal offenses. This section was primarily concerned with the commission of a crime utilizing a Time-Turner and detailed the punishment enhancement for the various levels of crimes. All in all it was nothing that he hadn't expected until his eye caught on one section towards the end. Time-loops. Apparently the creation of a time-loop was a Special-class Unforgivable punishable with annihilation, investigation and trial to be conducted by the Agency of Time Stabilization.

His eyebrows shot up. There were only three Unforgivables, everyone knew that. And what did they mean by annihilation? Why not just say execution? He flipped back to the definition section and read, 'annihilation – the complete eradication of a person from the timeline.' He shuddered and looked up 'Special-class Unforgivable.' It was apparently ranked higher then the three 'common' Unforgivables but nothing else. There was a reference number to another statute that teasingly offered more information but didn't feel like running back upstairs to retrieve it, so he made a note to check the reference later. What was it about a time-loop that was so bad? He tried reading the legal definition but it made his eyes cross.

The _Sands_ book had several chapters dedicated to time-loops. He noticed that while Morrow's writing was still fairly clear, this section developed more of the arithmatical equations supporting the theory. All of those went clear over his head. He dropped Arithmancy after his O.W.L.S. and focused on Potions and Defense. He had a solid grounding in Pascal's Theorems of Chance since he used them in experimental potions work all the time. But this was as far above Pascal's Theorems as… as a Chinese Celestial Dragon to a magic-less earthworm. _And that Granger girl read this in her _third_ year?_ he thought in astonishment. _Shit._

He did get the general gist of the matter by an "amusing anecdote" of a wizard who went back in time to before his father's birth and killed his father's father. This meant that the wizard who murdered his grandfather had not been born, he did not go back in time, did not kill his grandfather, therefore his father was born, the time traveling wizard was born, and he did go back to kill his grandfather and on and on and on. A time-loop, according to Morrow, is the end of everything because there is no longer any present to go forward to the future, only the immutable set actions of the past. That, Severus realized, was why according to Wizarding Law the creation of a time-loop is a Special-class Unforgivable. Maybe by taking the time traveling wizard out of time at every single moment, the time line would have no opportunity to loop. The new timeline would not be the same as the original but it would, ideally, be a stable continuous flow. Though trying figure out how that didn't just create another double loop was starting to give him a headache.

Solid, purposeful footsteps echoing off the flagstone startled Severus out of his thoughts. After a few startled moments he realized that they were heading right towards the Restricted Section. Instinctive fear at getting caught had him scrambling for his notes and the Time-Turner, and nearly falling out of his chair in his haste to back into a, hopefully safe, corner. A few moments of mind-numbing panic as he realized that he wasn't entirely sure which way took him upstream and which way went down. And was downstream further in the future or the past? The footsteps were about to turn the corner and his mind screamed at him, _it doesn't matter just move!_

He spun the hourglass four times in what he thought _might_ have been the opposite of the way he spun it before. When the world stopped spinning he was standing in the same corner of the Library. It was daytime, and he had to blink a bit from the bright light. His books had disappeared from the table, of course. He made his way out of the Restricted Section. Not carefully enough, he was caught and berated by Pince; lost points and gained a detention. Quite frankly he wasn't going to worry about it until he knew for sure he was at his point of origin. Checking the periodicals he swore under his breath, he was.

... ... ...

"Hey, it's the Gryffindor Pariah," he greeted Lily as she sat down next to him in their next Potions class. He hadn't missed the significant loss of points or the way all the other lions except Potter avoided her. "What did you do?"

"Oh, about 45 points apiece," she said smugly.

"Damn Lil, are you trying to lose the house cup?"

"Oh, please, I highly doubt Dumbledore will let 'em stick." He scowled and she sighed. "Which is really unfortunate, those boys seriously need to be taught a lesson."

"It'll be a cold day in Hell when that happens," he grumbled as the bell rang. Professor Slughorn came in a few minutes later and began instructing them on the base they would be making this class for three variants to be brewed in the following week. As he and Lily settled into a lull in the brewing he started thinking about his forays into time travel. Mostly he kept coming back to that bluebell candle. He really, really wanted one, but the flame was snuffed out almost instantaneously by the water, every time he cast the spell. "Hey, Lily, you're good at charms, right?"

"Yeah," she said slowly, instantly suspicious.

"How do you waterproof a bluebell flame?"

"You don't," she said. "You'd never be able to put it out."

"Huh," he said. He could have sworn it was just water in the little jar… maybe it was some other clear liquid.

"Sev, what are you planning?" she asked, sounding more like an exasperated mother then a teenage girl.

"Nothing really," he said, she just raised an eyebrow at him. "It's just... this device I saw the other day. It looked really neat and I was trying to recreate it, but I couldn't get the bluebell flame to work in the jar of water."

She hummed thoughtfully for a moment. "It might be a variation, or a different spell that just happened to look like a bluebell. Are you sure that's what it was?"

"Not really," he said, "but I don't know of any other spells that gave you a blue flame."

"Me neither, but that doesn't mean they don't exist." _Or haven't been invented yet._

After class he ducked into the Alchemy closet to check on his potions. Seven of his eight cauldrons were in use, four for the love potions and three for the polyjuice. In retrospect he should've loaded all eight with the love potion the moment school started to get a full crate done faster, but no, he decided to play around instead. He sighed, live and learn. The polyjuice cauldrons would be stewing for forever-and-a-day and so were lined up in a row in the back. The love potion however was incredible finicky, each batch requiring unique adjustments to get the same result, and so was laid out in front for easier access. Case in point, the left-most cauldron had lost the slow even simmer and would now need to restart the simmering time. And the color in the third cauldron was off, requiring more bleeding heart, even though all four cauldrons had been brewed exactly the same way up until that moment.

After all of the adjustments had been made he pulled out his notes on time travel and tried to figure out what to do next. Over the past day he expanded on his tests and theories. Most of which couldn't be verified without a good, solid chronometer (wizard clocks were just so... imprecise) and some place where it wouldn't be disturbed for decades at a time. There was one test he could try though. Philosophers, both Muggle and magical, have argued about free will versus predestination since the beginning of thought, and now he could answer the question. He was fairly sure that the Time-Turner set him forward a set distance, though he had very little to base this particular theory on. Since leaving here mid-day landed him in the middle of the night there, if he wanted to be there during the day he would have to leave here in the late evening or night. Although, considering that his last trip returned him exactly, or near enough, to the point at which he left, there really were no guarantees.

The plan involved extensive non-Restricted Section research, something almost unheard of in one of Severus' personal projects. He decided that he would rather be there during the day to avoid causing an unnecessary fuss. The teachers probably wouldn't care about an extra student wandering the halls unless he was causing trouble, and most other student's avoided Slytherins like they all had the plague. The only thing that he really had to worry about were other Slytherins seeing him and getting curious. And he was confident that he knew enough about the Slytherin mindset to talk himself out of almost anything. What he didn't plan on was the wait to his set departure time; it was pure and undiluted agony. He tried to distract himself with homework, but found himself growing even more jittery regardless of his best efforts. Right before curfew he entered the library and wove his way back to a disused corner.

When the disorientation of the time-travel passed, he could see that the light from the windows were now streaming in at an early morning angle rather then fading from the sky. He made his way cautiously towards the periodicals and didn't relax until he saw a study group of Ravenclaws at one of the heavy oak tables. Confidant in his plan, he went to the archives for the Daily Prophet and pulled out the book for 1977 flipped it open to his point of origin and started writing down the major headlines for the next two months_._ All of them neatly grouped by bulleted date points.

It took hours. The school bell tolled the start and end of classes and students came and went. Including Hermione who was bickering with a tall redhead, she either did not notice or bother to acknowledge him. Lily would sometimes do that while with other Gryffindors so he didn't pay it much mind. Severus finally finished after lunch ended and he was yawning widely. He gathered up the thick rolls of parchment and headed back.

He already had the letter written and charmed to cover any attempts to trace so it was only a manner of moments to get it sent off. Returning to the future library he found himself in the early morning hours once again, it proved his earlier theory about moving forward a set distance and made a mental note to avoid making trips that were too close together or he could have the same trouble with encountering himself that Morrow warned about. After waiting a few moments hidden behind a bookshelf to be sure that he wouldn't encounter himself from his last trip to the future, he pulled out the same Daily Prophet Archive book and starting comparing the headlines in the book to the list he wrote down.

The article he was looking for was published only two weeks into his future; "Mundungus 'Dung' Fletcher Arrested" replaced a society piece on Narcissa Malfoy nee Black. He scanned through the article... "anonymous tip"... "illegal love potions." There it was; that proved it. Two sets of articles, one changed by special action. Then his eye caught on a line of text: "...for leniency Fletcher aided the Aurors in the capture and conviction of the brewer who provided him these nefarious substances, one Severus Snape who was prosecuted to the fullest extent of wizard law and sentenced to Azkaban." Severus felt as though all the air had just gotten sucked out of his lungs. _Oh, bugger all._


	3. Chapter 3

Fast Forward

Chapter Three

Severus steepled his fingers, resting them on his chin, as he leaned back in his chair and let out a slow, shaky breath. Azkaban. His mind formed and discarded half a dozen plans in the space of that breath. He shook himself; sitting here panicking would do him no good. He glanced quickly over his shoulder before clipping the article from the book. Whatever he decided couldn't be done here.

Returning to his own time he weighed his options carefully. The easiest way to fix the problem would be to make sure that it never happened in the first place. Since he hadn't yet tested whether the Time-Turner sent him back in time past his point of origin, he might be able to hex the paper or the owl or otherwise make it undeliverable. He just couldn't do anything that might create a paradox, like interfering with himself sending the note.

He lifted the Time-Turner and examined it carefully. Twisting the knob _away _from himself sent him forwards in time, and, once there, turning it the opposite way sent him back along the time stream. He turned the knob backwards, but it wouldn't move. Whoever made it had it locked at the point of origin. He scowled down at the silver hourglass; of course _they_ had access to standard Time-Turners. He would have to stop Fletcher from turning him in, but first he would have to find out how and when Fletcher gave him up.

Severus made his way to the Slytherin dormitories. He had the Daily Prophet article, but lingering in the library to read it just seemed to be asking for detention. Of course, once there, it wasn't so easy either. Dolf and Evan, brimming with ideas and brand new hexes for getting back at Potter and Black, waylaid him the minute he entered the common room. _Idiots_. That was _days_ ago and Severus' impending doom was marginally more important. Why did he cultivate a camaraderie with these dunderheads again? Because safety was found in numbers, but, some days, more often then not it seemed lately, he had to wonder if it was worth the effort. He spent a few moments making approving noises at their plans, and suggesting a few jinxes that might be used to better effect, before pleading homework and making a break for it. Once ensconced safely in his bed in the seventh year dorm, he settled down to read the article in depth, unfortunately his long hours finally caught up with him and he fell asleep curled over the torn article.

He slept in, barely making it to Practical Kabbalah before the bell rang. As much as he wanted to hole up in his closet until he fixed the mess he so brilliantly caused, he knew better. One of his first lessons established early on, and then strongly reinforced here at Hogwarts, was: 'when everything is falling apart, act like nothing is wrong.' People were like every other animal in existence, both the mundane and the magical; they could sense a weakness and wouldn't hesitate to take advantage of it. Bastards. So, Severus sat in class, listened to the lecture, answered questions on the reading, and created a small talisman warding against minor non-magical injuries, all the while with the newspaper article burning a hole in his pocket. The next hour was a study hall, and while it wasn't unheard of for him to disappear; he had done so just yesterday to check up on his potions and if he left two days in a row it might raise suspicions, after that was History of Magic, and he couldn't take the pressure anymore. It helped that History of Magic was a class where no one was expected to pay attention; not even, Severus suspected, the professor.

The article, written by 'the Intrepid Free-Lance Journalist' Rita Skeeter, spent a lot of words on very little information of substance. She went on some length describing the 'Persona Dramatis': Mundungus Fletcher was shifty and repugnant (a surprisingly concise and accurate assessment given the general tone of the article), and Auror Shacklebolt was noble, brave, refined, worldly, and a host of other adjectives that made Severus want to gag. Her description of him, however, made him want to find and hex the woman before she could even dream of earning her byline. "It was immediately apparent from the moment that Severus Snape slunk through the Hog's Head's door that he was a wizard of the Darkest sort. He emanated an aura of evil from his greasy, lank hair to his shabby trainers, one missing a shoelace. The thought of what might have been done with that that missing length, and who it may have been done to, made this reporter's skin crawl." Severus snorted softly; he knew a good curse that could help her with that. "But this brave reporter would not be deterred from bringing to the public the lengths the Aurory goes to protect the witches and wizards of Wizarding Britain, and what they protect us from.

"Snape approached the unlikely duo of hardened criminal and brave Auror, whose nobility was disguised by the shoddy robes of a Knockturn Alley potions dealer here for the purpose of scouting out a new supplier of illegal potions and deadly poisons. As he, Snape, seated himself uninvited at the table, this reporter had a most shocking realization... he was a Hogwarts student! That illegal activity is going on right under Dumbledore..." She continued on at some length about the Headmaster's failings before getting back into the events at the Hog's Head. "With a sharp snap of his wand Snape cast an unknown spell, possibly Dark, that masked that sounds of conversation. Obviously he came prepared for criminal deeds! While the details of the operation are left to languish in obscurity in the Ministry files, this reporter can tell you that the sting was successful. Within the hour, an arrest was made and Severus Snape, student of Hogwarts, hardened criminal, and dark wizard, was carted off to face a timely trial that ended in a three-year sentence to Azkaban."

With shaking hands Severus folded and pocketed the article. No matter how he looked at it, the key lay in stopping Fletcher from identifying Severus to the Aurors. The most obvious answer to the problem was to not go to the meeting, but that wouldn't stop Fletcher from remembering some important detail later. Fortunately for Severus, the man was a moron and couldn't remember either Severus' name or the fact that he was a Hogwarts' student. It didn't mitigate the fact that Severus had been a complete dunderhead himself by giving the man his actual name _and_ not bothering with changing out of school robes to meet with him. Though it was of secondary concern, he made a mental note to stop that practice immediately.

Severus needed to meet with Fletcher to convince him that turning him in would be a Bad Idea. But, since Fletcher was in custody, the only time to do so would be during that sting operation, and it would have to be done without the Aurors cottoning on to the fact that it was going on. He wondered when Fletcher would try to contact him. The article didn't even mention when the operation took place, just where. Then he remembered the Ministry archive in the Library. He doubted that the Aurors would be any different from the Muggle law enforcement, an institution he was keenly aware of thanks to neighbors calling in complaints whenever his father got too drunk, too loud, too violent, or any combination thereof, in that they both generated tons of reports, probably in triplicate, for each complaint and every trial would have a public record kept. Somewhere in that library the details of the police report... Auror report on the operation would be filed neatly away; he just had to find it.

The bell rang and as much as he wanted to make a run for some secluded spot to use the Time-Turner, Severus sauntered down the corridors to the Great Hall. He even took the time to cast a quick _sectumsempra_ at Pettigrew. The spell sliced through his belt, within a few paces Pettigrew's trousers had fallen to tangle at his feet and sent him crashing to the ground, to the amusement of the other students in the hall. Severus grabbed a couple of sandwiches and told Dolf he was going to be working on his DADA essay in the library, the other boy already had his mouth full and simply waved him on.

The sandwich was long gone by the time he got to the library. Severus tucked himself behind a pillar near the statute of Justice, and pulled out the Time-Turner. His fingers twisted and spun the little hourglass four times and he was enveloped by darkness. There was barely a moment's pause at the statue before he was climbing the long twisting staircase to the hidden library. Much to his surprise someone was already there. Granger, this time properly attired in full robes flipping though the pages of the Master Index. He almost grinned at the thought of catching her, or hell, catching anyone who appeared as engrossed in something as she was at that moment, unawares. He readied his best 'prefect voice,' "Well, well, Miss Granger... Doing some after hours studying I see?"

She actually leapt up, cleared at least a hand's span, and came down facing him with her wand out. Severus was actually impressed by her recovery time, most students he knew would have screamed and dropped their wands after being startled that badly.

"Sna... Wha... Who are you and what are you doing here?" He frowned, his brow furrowing as he examined her though narrowed eyes, but hers held no recognition. Then he felt like slapping himself. He had never met her in this time-line, and the other one in which he did was gone, destroyed by the changes that he made by turning in Fletcher.

Given the way Granger's expression was darkening, he figured he had better introduce himself soon or find himself hexed. He bowed low, the Time-Turned, forgotten once again, swinging free, "Aurelius Prince, Slytherin Prefect, at your service."

"There's no..." she started, but her eyes caught on the Time-Turner and he could almost see the thoughts whirling behind her eyes. "You should put that away, you know no one's supposed to know that you have it."

"Must have slipped out," he said, tucking the small hourglass away. They both stared at each other over the Main Index for several long moments, before he stepped up pointed at the book, "May I."

"Oh! Of... Of course. Sorry," she stammered, backing away and pocketing a small scrap of parchment as she did so. He waited, watching as she slunk around the bookshelves out of sight before turning to the Index himself. The pages were still open to whatever she had been researching, something in the _'H'_ section between _'Honoraria_' and _'House-Elves._' He stared down at the open pages of the book and felt at a loss as to how to even begin to find his case. Maybe he shouldn't have let her run off. He shook his head; there was no way he was asking a _Gryffindor_ for help, not _again_. First he looked for his name, nothing. The Main Index seemed to be arranged by topic so he flipped back through the book and found, 'Love potions- see Potions, Controlled.' This, he figured, was going to be a long night.

He was still at the Main Index, having found 'Potions, Controlled, Love,' and was looking for something useful to jump out at him when Granger left the stacks and headed for the stairs with a black-bound Statutes book and two other smaller books bound in yellowing parchment. Neither of them said anything, and, as the blue light from her candle faded away, he found two possibilities: Auror Reports and Court Opinions. He was guessing that the Court Opinions were the trial decisions and went to find those first. These books were bound in rich green leather with gold embossed lettering. The section indexes, for some reason called tables, were organized by topic, name and title. A quick scan through the Case Name Table that indexed the name of every person involved or mentioned in a case, however he couldn't find his name mentioned anywhere at all. He frowned and ran his fingers through his hair, could he be in some third future where he didn't go to trial?

He shelved the book and ran back down the stairs to the Daily Prophet books. He found the correct book and flipped through it, constantly having to wet his finger as his hands had suddenly gone dry, and there it was, or rather wasn't'. There was a gaping hole where he had torn the article from earlier. A quick comparison showed that yes, this article had been ripped out from this spot, and no that nothing about it had changed. Still three years in Azkaban. He shelved the book and started making his way back to the hidden library. He had a trial; the article said so, even used his name, so why couldn't he find any record of his trial. On his way past the Restricted Section he saw the familiar flicker of a blue light. Didn't Granger say she did some legal research for a friend, maybe she'd know why he couldn't find any record of it. As much as he hated the thought of going to a Gryffindor (other then Lily) for help, he really had no other recourse, he didn't know of anyone who was even vaguely familiar with the Ministry's legal system.

Granger was sitting at the same table that she had occupied in the other time-line he met her. This time he made a point to not sneak up on her and waited for her glance up at him before speaking. "Hey, sorry for scaring you like that."

She leaned back with a long-suffering sigh. "What do you want?"

He held up his hands in a gesture of surrender with an innocent expression on his face. "What makes you think I want something? Is it because I'm Slytherin? I just wanted to apologize that's all."

"Uh-huh," she said sounding skeptical. "Forget Slytherins. I know boys, you lot never apologize unless you get something out of it."

He scowled at her, but couldn't see anyway around it, he had to play it her way and either ask her directly or duck out and try again later. He pulled out a chair across from her and sat down. "You are absolutely no fun at all, you know that?"

She grinned, her distrustful expression fading for the first time since he'd seen her in this time-line. He wondered what was different to make her so cautious. "Oh, I'm having loads of fun. Now, what do you want?"

"I'm looking for the court transcripts of a trial I read about in _The Prophet,_ but can't seem to find mention of it upstairs," he explained, leaning back in his chair. "So, what I want to know is where else can I look?"

"Un-huh, and where upstairs have you looked?" she asked thoughtfully, adding, "What color were the books?" at his confused stammer.

"Green... dark green with gold lettering."

"Well, no wonder," she said, as if that answered everything. "The Wizengamont only publishes opinions on new, groundbreaking cases."

"That's a lot of groundbreaking cases," he said.

"A misplaced comma is groundbreaking," she said dryly with a roll of her eyes, before continuing. "The case you're looking for is probably rather run of the mill and only written up for interested parties. You'll need court records and Auror reports for unpublished cases."

"Brilliant, thanks."

"Hey, wait a minute," she protested as he stood up. "What do I get out of this?"

He smirked. "The pleasure of sharing knowledge with a fellow student."

She opened her mouth to protest but only shut it again with a click of her teeth, before turning to her books. "Prat."

Her insult was half-hearted at best; he couldn't help but let out a soft chuckle. "Right, see you around."

Back upstairs he finally found the court records; they had been shoved into the far back and were covered in layers of dust. These weren't even kept in bound books but in colorful folders packed tight into the shelves. Even the section index was just a pile of poorly written papers on an iron ring hanging from the corner of one of the bookshelves. Like the published Court Opinions the index, table he reminded himself, was arranged by topic, name, and title, however, unlike the published Court Opinions he found his name... on several cases apparently. The first was set in 1977, and was probably the one he wanted.

It was an unfortunately thick file in a lurid purple folder with multi-colored tabs hanging out haphazardly from yellowing paper. The file opened on the last order of the court: the decision and sentencing recommendation. Reading his condemnation in looping feminine handwriting, better suited to notes passed behind a professor's back, made Severus' skin crawl. He carefully flipped back pages, ignoring the crack of stiff, dry paper that probably hadn't seen the light of day in years. Witness statements from the patrons of the Hog's Head, dragged in under duress according the cross examination, from addicts, and most damning of all, from Mundungus Fletcher who bought, cut, and resold his potions. Fletcher's sentence was reduced to a fine paid for by… Kingsley Shacklebolt. Severus was so startled that he actually dropped the file.

Pages scattered across the cramped aisle between bookshelves and the purple folder came to rest face down with the stiffly creased spine sticking up in the air like the bow of a capsized ship in a parchment sea. Bending down he collected the papers into a pile, paying no mind to the order or direction of the pages. He almost didn't recognize the Auror report when he found it. It had information filled in on a preprinted form with all the important dates in their little highlighted boxes. This page he pocketed and shoved the rest of the papers into the folder. He tried to get it back into its space but somehow the files had shifted and it would no longer fit, with a frustrated slam of his fist into the dense wall of tightly packed paper he shoved his file into the space on top and left it there. He stalked through the library, back to the place behind the pillar where he began this trip and went back to the moment he left.

He really did have a DADA essay that he needed to write, so he laid out his books and materials with the minor addition of the report stolen from the future tucked under his parchment so he could read it while doing other work. The report was really just the bare bones of events concisely written with an economy of words. The anonymous tip was received on the same day that he sent it: yesterday. Fletcher was picked up three days later- a small window of opportunity there- and the sting operation was planned and executed.

Severus absently wrote out the essay, three creative uses of the _protego_ spell. Half the class couldn't actually cast the spell, but the Professor's goal in life was to make sure that they wished they _could_, the worthless git. Severus couldn't figure out why anyone would bother teaching if he couldn't actually teach the subject properly, so what if a witch knew what to do with a _protego_ spell, or a _patronus_, if she didn't know how to cast it. _Severus_ had done more teaching in the DADA class then the professor, and at least _he_ made sure that the Slytherins could cast the basic defense spells. He forced his mind from the internal rant that had been cropping up at least once a week since first year and turned back to the task at hand.

Less then half of his mind was on the essay, the better part was working out plans and possibilities. Severus could _obliviate_ or _confund _the man before the Aurors picked him up. He couldn't tell what he didn't know. However, that approach didn't quite sit right with Severus; it was a rather ham-handed way to deal with the problem as it would be blatantly obvious that the man's mind had been messed with, even as barmy as he already was. Severus preferred more subtle ways of persuasion, contriving some way for someone to do what you want without resorting compulsion spells was always better as there was no traces left behind to tie back to you. The best jobs were done in such a way as to implicate the other person; he wouldn't talk for fear of facing punishment himself. Severus rolled his parchment up and double-checked the Auror report. Severus had all the pieces, he knew it. He just needed to put them together properly.

... ... ...

The time went by surprisingly quickly. Severus was not a patient boy and he was sure that he would be on tenterhooks for the next week, but between schoolwork, his personal projects, and the Moronic Marauders, he was kept too busy to worry about the myriad of things that could go wrong. The owl from Fletcher, letting him know that a Knockturn Alley apothecary was looking into commissioning some 'rare and difficult' (read: _illegal_) potions with a time to meet 'at their usual place,' came at lunch the day of the sting, only two hours before the requested meeting time. _Clever_, Severus thought to himself. They didn't give him an opportunity to refuse or plan for any exigencies. Looking at the letter, he couldn't believe he had been stupid enough to even go the meeting in the first place... surely it must have seemed strange to his other self. Or did it only seem so knowing what he did from the future?

The timing of the meeting also explained why he showed up in his school robes; it was set for sixth period. Provided he went to Transfiguration the hour before, which he would be an idiot not to, McGonagall had it out for 'slackers' in general, and Slytherins in particular. He would just barely get there in time, but he wouldn't have any time to change between Hogwarts and Hogsmead. However, in order to properly execute his plan he couldn't risk entering late or standing out in any way. So, he was going to have to skip the class and take the detention. Really, though, Azkaban... detention... there was no comparison.

As soon as lunch was over he told Dolf and the others to make his excuses to McGonagall and left for the dorms to change into his weekend clothes; ratty Muggle jeans under potion-stained black lab-robes, distinguished by tightly tailored sleeves that wouldn't trail across laid out ingredients, dip into brewing potions, or catch in open flames. Years of spying on the Gryffindor Marauders had resulted in learning numerous useful secret passages in and around the school including one that let out behind the apothecary. A small trip to the Post Office, after which he set the minor glamour in place, and he was ready. It was a clever little charm worked up by Lily back in their third year, once set it grew and shifted using tiny increments of magic eventually effecting a major change without leaving any significant trace that could be detected. The caster could have it set to effect any random change or deliberately guide it to a desired end result. Currently he had it running under parameters for bland and unnoticeable, with a small "no one here" compulsion thrown in just in case.

Inside the Hog's Head there were neither more nor fewer patrons seated at the scattered tables than usual. Severus settled into a corner seat facing the door and prepared to wait. He had the better part of an hour for his glamour to build to something unrecognizable, although the barkeep plopped a questionable drink in front of him, even with the compulsion in place that should have kept the man from noticing him. Severus wasn't sure if that was a statement for or against his rudimentary Dark Arts skills. Certainly enough people have wondered about Aberforth, and minor Arts would occasionally attract the attention of practitioners while discouraging everyone else. Severus settled in to wait.

This was the waiting that made him want to crawl out his skin and climb the walls. It drove him all sorts of insane. There was nothing to do here and all the could do was think: think about his conjuration practical coming up, reading to be done, and what the hell was he supposed to do with a crate of love potions anyway?

And then they walked in. Fletcher was easy to spot, a ragged man in a ratty disguise with one "eyebrow" still hanging half off, but it was the other one who immediately captured his attention. The article described the Auror in plain-robes like it was a costume, a veneer of rancid wax on a rich oak table. Severus thought that he, the he that walked into the meeting, should have known something was up immediately by the reporter's description, but looking at this man there was no way he could have. Shacklebolt wore the clothes and the persona like he owned them. No one would question that this man was exactly what he claimed to be: A Knockturn Alley apothecary. He even had stains on his hands and robes, like he had stepped away from work for a business lunch.

As the two sat down, neither sparing more then a glance in his direction the owl he mailed from the Post Office reached them. Shacklebolt took it and started working away at the layers upon layers of hexes and jinxes worked on the seal. Fletcher, was beginning to realize that something was up, scanned the room in short nervous bursts. This was the moment he needed.

"Mundungus Fletcher, _look at me._" The compulsion combined with his name forced the man to look at Severus, and the glamour combined with the counter compulsion released Fletcher and he went back to nervously scanning the room, but not before Severus caught him in a moment of brief eye contact and slid his message neatly into Fletcher's mind. Legilimency is a useful skill to have; the Prince family had long ago perfected the casual contact of skimming recent memories. Mother always said that you couldn't read or communicate active thoughts, those sections were too 'hot' and a young legilimens could get his mind and magic badly burned trying. Memories were the best. They were safe and quiescent underneath the more active thoughts.

He could see the moment Fletcher realized that he had a memory that wasn't his own. Most wizards had the basic self-awareness to recognize when something was wrong in their own heads, some with greater speed and accuracy then others. Fletcher leapt back, the chair fell to the floor in a load clatter, and looked around wildly, eyes rolling even in their sockets. Severus smirked; he had carefully concocted the memory and was very proud of how it had turned out. One of his older cousins used legilimency to pass along a series of 'stock quotes;' statements they used often and could communicate the meaning by passing the memory of the statement to another. They usually just talked around him at the family Christmas and other gatherings his parents insisted on, but he picked up on the trick anyways. This particular memory wasn't so much a simple quote or command; it was an elaborate monologue taking place in his Alchemy closet.

"Mr. Fletcher," he began coldly, it had taken him days of practice to perfect that icy tone. "Do you think me a fool? Did you _think_ that I would not catch you out?" Here he toyed with a concoction on the table before him, it was a sickly, poisonous green. "I would remind you, Fletcher, that I am not a man to be trifled with. I know poisons, undetectable, that would cause your blood to boil in your veins. I know hexes, untraceable, that could flay the flesh from your bones." He set down to pace the room with an air of restless violence before coming to a stop back where he started, this time facing outwards with his hands placed up against a high shelf one on either side him, and leaned forward, using the light to best effect that caused him to appear as a shadowy figure backlit from the grimy window above. "I could do this now with little concern or compunction. So, imagine if you will, what a year or two... or five in Azkaban could do. It would do very little to erase knowledge and skills; these things have little enough to do with happiness. No, what you want to consider would be the status of sanity upon release... and the effect on your continuing health."

Fletcher was so close to pissing himself that when Shacklebolt finally worked through the last of the wards with a loud "AH-ha!" Fletcher shrieked and dove under the table.

"It appears that your friend is unable to make it... hmm, do you think he may know something, Dung? Dung?" Rather then looking under the table, he scanned the room, eyes passing unseeing over Severus' corner, but Severus was able to catch a recent memory of Albus Dumbledore Flooing the man's office.

"I realize that you are only a satellite Order member, and getting caught could mean your job," Dumbledore was saying, waving a placating hand. "But Mundungus Fletcher is important, we can't afford for him to spend two years in Azkaban, not now where every soul we can get to stand against Voldemort is needed. Please, Kingsley, I'm not asking for miracles just do what you can to minimize the damage without cost to yourself."

Both Shacklebolt and Severus shuddered at the mention of You-know-who's name, even in memory, and the contact was gone. Severus was glad that he had decided against sending a message to the Auror; the man's mind was sharp and sterile, the feel of an inactive or natural occlumens and he had no desire to venture further into that minefield. As it was the briefest brush certainly gave him lots of unanswered questions: Why did Dumbledore want Fletcher kept out of prison? And, to such an extant that he ordered the man to pay his bond? What was this "Order"? And how did they think they could accomplish something as absurd as defeating You-Know-Who, with wizards like Mundungus Fletcher?


End file.
